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Mission to Fort Reval
The Mission to Fort Reval was an event that took place at the start of the Swarm Invasion. The team of outsiders led by former sergeant Marcus Fenix went on a mission to Fort Reval, an old tourist site turned into a field hospital during the Locust War, in order to investigate locust crystal shells entombed in an osmium mine located beneath the fort and their possible connection to the creatures that raided the Outsider village led by Reyna Diaz a few hours earlier. Order of Battle Entering the Fort At 00:26 , JD, Del, Kait and Marcus arrive at Fort Reval - a centuries old Tyran fortress - after successfully escaping the COG forces that attacked the Stroud Estate nearly 4 hours earlier. JD asks his father if he thinks they will find traces of "the Swarm" there. Hearing the name they came up with for the creatures, Marcus is confused at first, then amused by it and tells them that the true reason they came there is not the fort itself, but an old osmium mine underneath it. Marcus continues, explaining that after the Imulsion Countermeasure was used at the end of the Locust War and the Lambent Pandemic, indestructible, yellow crystals - similar to the one JD showed Marcus back at the Estate - covered the Locust bodies and the only way to dispose of them was to seal them in various underground locations scattered all over the planet, the mine being one of them. He says that 25 years earlier, he and Anya Stroud supervised the disposal of the locust shells and if "the Swarm" is somehow connected to the Locust, this is where they should start their investigation. On their way to the mine, Del asks Marcus if he thinks the Locust are back and he responds by saying he does not know yet. While exploring the streets of the town, they hear a disturbing, animal-like sound. They follow the noise to its source, but before they can localize it, a windflare hits the fort, forcing them to take shelter in a building. After entering it, they discover strange, glowing biomass and decide to follow it. JD investigates a big cluster of biomass and covers himself in glowing liquid in the process. As they exit the building, JD and the rest find a large, glowing pod. Marcus suggests JD to cut it open and proceeds to do so, despite his son's and his own reluctance. He uses his Custom Lancer to chaisaw the pod and the group is horrified to see its contents - a partially disolved human body - pour out of it. JD spots the phoenix omen on the armor of the abducted Gear, realising it is the Swarm who is taking the COG citizens. Thinking the same fate could meet her mother, Kait starts panicking and JD calms her down. While walking down an alley, they see dozens of other pods on the ground and the walls with biomass tendrils connecting them. Marcus says he has never seen anything like it during the war and a few seconds later the team hears the creature they heard a few minutes earlier is stalking them again. When they enter a large courtyard, Marcus commands the team to take cover. He spots their stalker - a large, arachnid-like creature - and tells the rest to cover him, while he is going to flush it out with a grenade. As Marcus prepares to throw his grenade, he notices rubble falling down from the roof of the building on his right, then looks up to see another, identical creature launch a large quill at him using its tail. The quill hits Marcus in the shoulder, causing him to collapse and drop his grenade, which lands next to JD. Former lieutenant barely avoids the explosion, collapses and witnesses his father being snatched by the creature. JD, Del and Kait attempt to free him by opening fire at the monster, but are forced to run when another three snatchers show up and starts chasing them. They take shelter a building just in time and barricade the door with a desk. While JD is furious, Del and Kait succumb to hysteria. JD calms himself and his friends down and assumes the position of the group's leader, then decides they should follow the snatcher that abducted Marcus to the same place he was taking them to - the burial site. Following the Snatcher The squad exits the building and heads deeper into the Swarm's territory. While trying to cut through a building, JD kicks a door only to find out it is blocked by another pod. He cuts it open and finds an underdeveloped humanoid creature inside, which makes other pods pop with its scream, releasing its fully developed siblings. After dealing with the creatures, the team cuts through another building, causing JD to collapse through the floor into a basement full of pods. Del deduces that the pods are incubators, which means they need to hurry if they want to save Marcus i n time. As they exit the building, their radios pick up static caused by Marcus' radio and moments later the team spots the snatcher. Attacked by the Swarm, they make their way to an old cathedral, where they discover that the creatures from the pods can evolve by crawling into E-Hole-like pools of biomass in the matter of seconds. After a few firefights with their newly discovered enemies in the cathedral, JD and his friends call the smaller creatures "Juvies" and their evolved versions "Drones", comparing their development cycle to that of some insects. Following a fight in the fort's cemetery, the squad is about to enter the cable car station, when they are ambushed by three quadrupedal creatures capable of launching multiple quills from their tails. After dealing with the creatures they dubbed "Pouncers", they enter the station and use a cable car to reach the upper parts of the fort. While Del takes care of the funicular, JD tries to comfort a visibly deflated Kait. Trying to accelerate the cable car, JD cuts its counterweight off, which causes it to drastically accelerate and crash into the upper station, though neither of the passengers is hurt. The team continues following the snatcher and finds itself ambushed in the fort's museum dedicated to the Pendulum Wars and the Battle of Aspho Fields. After repelling the attack, they leave the museum and Del remarks it is a shame that the new COG let places like Fort Reval be forgotten, to which JD responds by saying places like this only remind people like Marcus, Reyna or Mina Jinn the hell of the Locust War. JD and his friends follow the snatcher to the entrance to the fort's catacombs, believing the tunnels are connected with the mine and its hive. After fighting their way through the catacombs, they manage to find a way into the mining shaft. Del shares his doubts with JD, but the young Fenix manages to convince his friend to trust him, just like he trusted Del, when they went AWOL following the Settlement 2 incident. They board a mining lift, turn the power back on and establish a defensive perimeter using a fabricator as the platform goes down the shaft. While the squad repels continous Swarm attacks, the lift's breaks disengage due to Swarm tendrils getting caught in the gears, which causes it to start falling down with nothing to control its speed. They manage to break through to one of the control panels and activate the emergency break, which engages with a delay and slows the lift down just in time. After getting off the lift at 01:19, JD, Del and Kait head deeper into the mine. Kait seems surprised that the mine still has power after all these years and Del explains that old COG mines are powered with geothermal energy. In the tunnels, they stumble upon a dump of old locust weapons like the Hammerburst II assault rifles and the Boltok revolvers, a dead outsider surrounded by juvie corpses and a "TURN AWAY" sign written on the floor with blood. The team enters a huge cavity and sees a tunnel leading into the main part of the hive. Going down the staircase, JD finds a locust shell. Del mentions that the locust crystals are so hard they can shatter diamonds. Moments later they find a cluster of shells. As Kait tries to inspect one of them, a large humanoid resembling a Locust Drone emerges from the behind of the shell cluster and attacks the team with another similarly looking humanoid and a group of swarm drones strengthened by a strange gas generated by their larger comrades. After dealing with the group, JD, Del and Kait are shocked to discover that the Imulsion Countermeasure Weapon did not kill the Locust, but unbeknownst to the entire human population of Sera, forced their bodies to form crystal cocoons and evolve over the last 25 years, meaning that humanity - once again - finds itself at war with its sworn enemy. JD and his teammates find a mechanical loader and use it to break through swarm-controlled tunnels and finally reach the center of the hive, where they battle the snatcher that kidnapped Marcus. Knowing time is of the essence, JD, Del and Kait search the hive for a fresh-looking pod. They manage to find one and cut Marcus out of it, though he appears to be dead at first. JD desperately tries to make his father breathe and breaks down while Del tries to comfort his friend, telling JD he should let Marcus go. The young Fenix cannot accept the possibility of his father dying and after a few seconds, Marcus starts to expectorate the liquid from the pod. He grabs JD's hand, as he tries to help him. Marcus wakes up and coughs from rest of the liquid stuck in his respiratory tract, then JD calms him down and assures his father he is safe. Marcus tells JD and the rest of the group that the entire hive is a connected network that he accessed while being podded, which allowed him to feel all the abducted people and learn that the Locust evolved into "Scions" - The next stage of their evolution and are now using the kidnapped people to grow an army for the coming war. He also informs Kait that all people from her village - except her mother, who is being treated differently by the Scions - are dead. While saddened Del mentions Oscar, JD tells Kait he is sorry, but she quickly responds, saying that mourning their friends is not going to help Reyna. Marcus adds that Reyna was taken to another burial site at the Tollen Dam, not far from their current position. With Marcus saved, the entire group decides it is time to get out. Getting Out Despite numerous Swarm reinforcements trying to stop them, JD, Kait, Del and Marcus make their way back to the mining shaft and with the lift destroyed, Marcus and Kait hold the swarm off, while JD and Del are trying to figure out a way of getting back to the surface. JD tells each of the rest to grab one of the wire ropes and shoot the screws connecting them to the lift, which causes the counterweight to eject them up just in time before the Swarm can overwhelm them. While traveling back to the surface, the entire shaft starts collapsing and the squad almost gets crushed by the gears of the lifting mechanism. JD, his father and friends climb up the ropes, exiting the mine and proceed to the nearby Tollen Dam and its burial siteGears of War 4. Aftermath The expedition to Fort Reval, despite its difficulties, turned out to be a success. The team led by Marcus and - in his absence - JD managed to gather crucial intel on the disappearances and the creatures responsible for them, including the discovery of the Locust evolution into Scions, the true reason behind the Locust crystallization. The success of the expedition can be partially attributed to the Swarm itself, as podding Marcus gave him access to important information, like the location of Reyna Diaz, the existence of the Swarm hive mind and a confirmation regarding the return of the Locust Horde - Information that would not be obtainable in any other way. While the Locust evolution seems at least partially explained by the discovery, the origins of the Swarm biomass, network, evolution cycle, snatchers, pouncers etc. remain a mystery. Contradictory to Marcus' information, Oscar Diaz survived the attack. References Category:Events Category:Battles